Has the kouprey (Bos sauveli Urbain, 1937) been domesticated in Cambodia?

Abstract

The kouprey (Bos sauveli Urbain, 1937) is a very rare bovid species of Cambodia, which may be extinct in the wild, as no living specimen has been observed for a long time. Here, we describe a complete taxidermy mount, which presents astonishing morphological similarities with the kouprey. The animal was mounted in 1871 at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, where it was referenced as No. 1871-576. It was deposited at the Natural History Museum of Bourges, France, in 1931, where it is still conserved today. To clarify the taxonomic status of the specimen of Bourges, DNA was extracted from a piece of bone taken on the mandible, and two different fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene were independently amplified and sequenced. The phylogenetic analyses show that the specimen of Bourges is robustly associated with the holotype of the kouprey, and that both are related to other wild species of Bos found in Indochina, i.e., banteng (B. javanicus) and gaur (B. frontalis). Because of doubts for sexing the animal, we applied a molecular test based on the PCR amplification of a DNA fragment specific to the Y chromosome. The results indicate that the specimen of Bourges is a male. The comparisons with male kouprey previously described in the literature reveal important differences concerning the body size, general coloration and horns. As these differences involve phenotypic traits that are strongly selected in case of domestication, we suggest that the specimen of Bourges was a domestic ox. This implies therefore that the kouprey may have been domesticated in Cambodia, and that several extant local races may be directly related to the kouprey.

Phylogenetic relationships of Malayan gaur with other species of the genus Bos based on cytochrome b gene DNA sequences

“…Genetic distance and relatively high values of bootstrapping and Bayesian posterior probability supported the distinction of these two domestic species. These findings are identical to some earlier reports based on sequences of mtDNA of cattle species (Hassanin and Ropiquet, 2004;Verkaar et al, 2004;Hassanin et al, 2006;Ma et al, 2007). Bradley et al (1996) concluded that the association of taurine and zebu cattle reflects the fertility of female as well male hybrid offspring, with a divergence time of 100,000 to 200,000 years.…”

“…Phylogenetically, gaurs belong to the tribe Bovini and are further assigned to the subtribe Bovina, which includes some other extant species such as B. taurus (taurine cattle), B. indicus (zebu cattle), B. javanicus (banteng), B. grunniens (yak), Bison bison (American bison), Bison bonasus (European bison), and other Bubalus species (Hassanin and Ropiquet, 2004;Hassanin et al, 2006). To date, studies on the relationship of species in the genus Bos have been investigated by researchers around the world using several types of molecular data and techniques: a) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence data (Matthee and Davis, 2001;Cai et al, 2007;Gu et al, 2007;Ginja et al, 2010); b) nuclear DNA sequence data and microsatellites (Kikkawa et al, 2003;MacEachern et al, 2009), and c) DNA fingerprinting and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) techniques (Vasil'ev et al, 2002;Buntjer et al, 2002).…”

What is the taxonomic status of the Cambodian banteng and does it have close genetic links with the kouprey?

“…This hypothesis, and the fact that mtDNA is maternally inherited, implies that the mtDNA of banteng was transferred into the kouprey ancestor through a mating between a zebu male and a banteng female during historic times. This scenario is apparently plausible, as Cyb sequences related to the kouprey have already been detected in domestic cattle from Cambodia (specimen from Bourges; Hassanin et al , 2006), and as banteng maternal introgression has been previously evidenced in Indonesian zebu (Kikkawa et al , 2003; Nijman et al , 2003). In Java, it is generally accepted that the Bali cattle was domesticated from wild banteng (Martojo, 2003).…”

“…Several of these signatures were previously found in two Cyb fragments produced for a specimen preserved in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Bourges (No. 1871‐576, MNHN; Hassanin et al , 2006). The first Cyb fragment (positions 163–405, accession number DQ275470) is perfectly identical to the kouprey, but differs from Cambodian banteng at positions 273 (C) and 396 (A).…”

Species identification, molecular sexing and genotyping using non‐invasive approaches in two wild bovids species: Bos gaurus and Bos javanicus

“…Coupled with phylogenetic analyses, we observed that the fragment between positions 867 and 1,140 of the cyt b gene contains species-specific diagnostic sites, which allowed us to distinguish the four species unambiguously. DNA amplification of this 274 base pair (bp) sequence was performed using the following primers: L15612: 5 0 -CGATCAATYCCYAAYAAACTAGG-3 0 and H15915 (reverse): -TCTCCATTTCTGGTTTACAAGAC-3 0 [Hassanin et al, 2006]. The cyt b PCRs on fecal DNA were run under the following conditions: 1 Â PCR buffer (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.3, 50 mM KCl, 2 mM MgCl2), 0.2 mM of each dNTP, 1 mM of each primer, 0.5 units of AmpliTaq Gold TM (Applied Biosystems, Warrington, UK) and 5 mL of fecal DNA in a final reaction volume of 25 mL.…”